


you look familiar

by slugmutt



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: 5+1, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Mild Smut, Other Characters Briefly Mentioned - Freeform, beard-related silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-09-30 16:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10167359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slugmutt/pseuds/slugmutt
Summary: Five times Jyn doesn't recognize Cassian, and one she does.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Priya, who asked for "Five times Jyn didn't recognize Cassian when he shaved his beard off, and the one time he just couldn't hide from her."

It’s not until he runs into Bodhi that Cassian realizes why he’s been getting so many strange looks for the past half hour.

“You’re smiling,” Bodhi says, hesitant. “That’s… different. Why are you smiling?”

Is he smiling? Huh.

Well. He’s excited about this new mission. Because it’s important to the cause, and he thinks that his team will succeed in achieving the objective. So of course he’s smiling.

And if command finally agreed that his team should include Jyn Erso, well – that doesn’t hurt, either.

“New mission,” is all he tells Bodhi. “Can you be ready in two hours?”

“Of course,” Bodhi says, starting to look excited too. “I’ll get my things.” He starts to walk away, then turns and says, “Jyn was at the firing range, last I saw her. In case, you know, you had something to tell her.” Cassian heads for the firing range, ignoring Bodhi’s laughter.

He finds her just as she’s preparing to leave. “Jyn!” he calls. She pauses and waits for him to catch up, a strange look on her face.

“They approved it,” he tells her, and he can feel himself smiling again. “We cleared for a mission. All of us, together. In the Mytaranor sector.” He hands her the file. “Here, you can read up on what we have so far.”

She takes the file slowly, and – she doesn’t look happy. In fact, she’s clearly disappointed.

Cassian does not feel his heart drop. He doesn’t. Yes, he thinks they would work well together, but if she’d prefer a different assignment, that’s fine. Completely fine.

“Is this not what you wanted?” he asks, and is happy to hear his voice is calm.

She shrugs, still looking sad. “I’m sorry, it’s just – I thought I was going to be serving with Captain Andor.”

He’s confused for a moment, then – “Very funny, Jyn.”

She laughs.

“Come on, I don’t look that different.” Yes, he shaved his beard this morning, but it’s not like that’s a big change – right?

“I honestly didn’t recognize you for a second!” she protests.

She reaches up and brushes a hand against his cheek, feeling his smooth skin. It’s clear she means it as a casual gesture, but somehow his eyes meet hers exactly as her fingers brush his skin and suddenly the air is heavy with a strange tension.

She practically jumps back. “Anyway. Um. Should I get my things on board?”

He clears his throat. “Yes. Ah, we’ll be leaving in a couple of hours, so yes. We should get started.”

“Cassian!” she calls, as he starts making his way to the weapons storeroom. He turns back, and she gives him a soft smile. “Thanks for fighting for me.”

He can’t help the smile on his face as he collects their blasters. If he gets more strange looks, well - at least now he knows why.

*

Jyn walks up to a bar on Cloud City, hips swinging, and orders a beer. In her red dress and heels, she looks like just another bored woman from Coruscant looking for some excitement at the local casinos.

Cassian watches her from one of the quiet booths in back. She doesn’t come over to him right away. That’s good, she’s learning. Not that she hasn’t always been remarkably talented when it comes to staying alive, but – she doesn’t really have the patience for undercover work.

It’s funny how that’s never frustrated him. He feels like he should wish she could be different, more careful – Force knows Draven and the rest of command certainly wish she would be more careful – but he doesn’t. She’s impatient because she’s bold and powerful and so full of energy that sometimes it’s overwhelming just looking at her, and he loves that about her.

Still, he’s impressed by her patience this time. Until he realizes, about five minutes in, that it’s not patience. She just honestly hasn’t spotted him yet.

He sighs and waves down a waiter, sends her a drink to get her attention. A moment later she’s sliding into the booth across from him.

“Cassian?” she whispers, leaning close.

He flips up his sunglasses for a moment so she can see his face.

“Holy shit. I can’t believe you’re, you know. You.”

“I don’t look that different without a beard,” he grumbles.

“Two things,” she says, crossing her legs and switching the fruity drink he ordered her for his whisky. “For one, yes, you do. For another – I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s not just the beard. You’re _blond_.”

He scowls. “Don’t remind me.”

She laughs. “So,” she murmurs, leaning closer and running a hand up his arm. “About that thing we were talking about earlier.”

He swallows, and carefully looks away from her cleavage as she leans further over the table.

She leans even closer, her lips brushing his cheek as she whispers, “On your left, just past the woman in gold.”

He risks a quick glance to the left, over the casino floor, and sees a heavy-set man with grey hair talking to one of the card dealers. “Blue shirt, grey hair?” he asks, turning back to her.

He judges the distance wrong and their faces brush together. He pulls back slightly but Jyn doesn’t seem to care. She just throws her head back and laughs as if he’s said something funny.

“Yes, that’s Admiral Rennig,” she says.

He leans toward her, lowering his voice. “So how do you want to do this?”

Her hand comes up to his collar, pulling him closer, until he can see the flecks of gold in her eyes. Her expression is half amusement, half challenge. “Watch and learn,” she whispers.

 

Admiral Rennig turns out to be more than happy to include another pretty woman at his card table. And it’s Jyn he moves closer to, when she asks him to explain the rules of the game. It’s her who he lets brush against him to retrieve her cards without a word of complaint.

Cassian’s watching closely from behind his glasses, but even he can’t tell when she manages to drop the powder into his drink. One minute they’re playing cards together and she’s laughing at the Admiral’s jokes, and the next she’s excusing herself with a bright smile.

She gives him another sharp, half-mocking smile as he meets her outside. “You didn’t think I solved every problem with a blaster, did you?” she asks.

“No comment,” he answers, earning himself a jab to the ribs.

They wait in the hallway just outside the admiral’s suite. Sure enough, the admiral barges into his room twenty minutes later, and doesn’t lock the door behind him. They enter quietly, and Cassian scans through his datapad files to the sound of vomiting from the fresher, while Jyn watches over him, blaster at the ready.

At one point there are footsteps moving toward the bedroom, and she pushes him down and rolls them both under the bed in a heartbeat. He blinks in the sudden darkness, and tries not to think about the way she’s pressed against him, her face against his chest, her knee between his legs.  

And then the footsteps turn back again, and they hear more retching sounds. She disentangles herself first, and he goes back to the datapad. A minute later they have what they need.

She takes his hand as they leave the room, as if they’re just another young couple on vacation. He leans into her and adjusts his hand, intertwining their fingers, because – that’s what couples do, right? He’s not used to playing the part of a lover during missions, but he’s pretty sure that’s what couples do.

 

Even Draven is visibly impressed at what they bring back.

“He said we make ‘an adequate team,’” Cassian tells Jyn later, over dinner. She ducks her head quickly, but not before he sees her smile.

*

Only when the Stormtroopers are marching her into the desert does Jyn realize she might actually be about to die.

She was so sure… well, actually, no, she wasn’t sure this would work. She hadn’t really had time to think about the odds. She’d only had time to see that the Stormtroopers were headed right to where Cassian was hiding.

Creating a distraction had seemed like the smart thing to do, at the time. She’d thought there was a small chance they’d manage to arrest her, maybe even keep her in custody for a few days before the rest of the team found a way to blast their way in.

But when the ‘troopers brought her to their captain, he’d just waved them off. “I don’t have time for this. Take it outside and deal with it,” he’d told them.

Now two of them are marching her to a barren strip of land just out of sight of the command center. She’s not sure how far they’re planning to take her, but she can’t afford to wait to find out.

She studies her captors out of the corner of her eye. They’re not in full Stormtrooper white; they have helmets and visors, but their faces are visible from the eyes down. More importantly, their necks are vulnerable.

Left or right? She only has a second to choose.

She lunges for the one on her right, and manages to catch him off guard, but he’s too quick and all she manages to do is give him a bloody nose. They go tumbling down, fighting for his blaster.

He wins.

The other trooper lets him take the shot. Jyn watches as he raises the blaster to her head. _I’m sorry_ , she thinks. She’s not sure who she’s apologizing to – her team? Her parents? Herself? She feels like she’s failed them all.

There’s a shot. And the Stormtrooper to her left drops dead.

The ‘trooper holding the blaster raises his visor.

“Cassian?” she says in shock. This – this is not possible.

“Yes,” he says. He lifts a hand, wipes at his bloody nose. “Thanks for almost killing me,” he adds drily.

“I didn’t know it was you,” she says, still numb. “How… ?”

He seems to realize that she’s having trouble moving. “Jyn, we have to go,” he says gently. “Come on.” He helps her to her feet and swings one of her arms over his shoulders. They start moving deeper into the desert, half-running.

“How are you here?” she manages, a minute later.

“I was lucky,” he says. “The trooper who found me was alone. I was able to take his uniform, and blend in with the others.”

“But how – I saw you under an hour ago, you looked completely different,” she says, still struggling to comprehend. “You had a beard, for one.”

He shrugs. “Right. Which meant they were looking for a man with a beard. So I shaved.”

“You shaved in the two minutes that you were hiding? How… That’s not even possible.”

He grins, smug. “I know. Which is why it’s such a good trick.”

A few minutes later they stop under a massive outcropping of rock. “We’re never going to get away on foot,” he says. “I’ll tell Bodhi to pick us up here.” He waits a moment. “Jyn, you have the comm,” he reminds her.

“Oh. Right.” She reaches into her bra and pulls it out. “Here.”

She watches as he makes the call. As soon as he finishes, she asks, “So you explained how you escaped, but how did you end up here?”

He looks at her like he can’t believe she’d say something so dumb. “I saw them take you,” he says.

She scowls. “You shouldn’t have come. That was risky.”

OK, _now_ he looks like he can’t believe she’d say something so dumb. “Are you – you can’t – “ he sputters. “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS.” He stops, breathing hard, his expression furious.

“You don’t,” he finally manages to say. “You don’t get to serve yourself up as bait for two dozen Stormtroopers and then tell me not to take risks.”

She glares. “I was creating a distraction.”

He looks like he wants to hit something. “Do you not realize that you just almost died?” he yells. His anger seems to leave him, then, and he slumps back against the rock. “Just – don’t,” he says, cutting off her reply.

They sit in silence and wait for the rest of the team.

Cassian doesn’t speak to her the entire way back to base. Or when they’re unloading the ship, or during dinner.

There’s a soft knock on her door an hour after she goes to bed. She answers quickly. It’s not like she’d been able to sleep, anyway.

Cassian is standing on the other side, his hands in his pockets, his hair a mess.

“Hey,” she says cautiously.

“Promise you won’t die for me,” he says.

“I – what?”

“I’m not going to ask you to promise you won’t put yourself in danger,” he says. “But – not for me.” She’s silent. “Please, Jyn,” he adds quietly, his eyes serious.

She sighs and slumps against the doorway. “I can’t promise that,” she says slowly. “We’re a team. We protect each other.”

He’s clearly not happy with her answer, but he doesn’t look angry, either. 

“We’re a team,” he agrees. “But…”

She waits. “But what?”

He sighs. “But if you die for me, you won’t be protecting me,” he says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She looks at him as she says it, hoping for some clue of what he’s thinking, but it’s too late. He’s made his face carefully neutral; whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t want her to know.

“I mean that there’s enough blood on my hands already,” he tells her. And he’s trying to keep his face neutral, she can tell, but she can also see the sadness in his eyes, and she thinks the explanation might be at least half of the truth.

She’s not sure why, but her response is to throw her arms around him. For a moment he just stands there, and she’s afraid she went too far. They don’t really do things like this.

But then his arms are pulling her in tight, and she can feel his breath shaking as he exhales, his face in her hair. He’s warmer than she would have thought, and his arms around her are gentle, and – she’s not going to let herself get used to this, she’s not, but she will give herself another minute.

“Jyn?” he asks after a moment. She hums. “I can’t help but notice that’s not a promise.”

She sighs and reluctantly lets go. The night air feels harsh on her skin now.

“I promise I won’t die for you unless it’s absolutely necessary,” she says. He gives her a look that’s half glare, half resignation. “It’s better than what you had this morning,” she points out.

He just looks at her, for long enough that it starts to make her nervous. She isn’t going to lie to him – and she’s certainly not going to promise to leave him to die – but she doesn’t want to fight again, either. She’s not sure she can take another day of silence.

But in the end all he says is a quiet, “Goodnight.”

She closes the door, and spends another restless hour in bed.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Cassian is aware of when he wakes up is pain. Everything hurts, and he's not one to say that lightly. 

The second thing is a voice.

“… don’t know,” the voice is saying, “they’re not telling me anything, and I… “

The speaker is sad, and he finds himself wanting to comfort her. He knows that voice, that’s… it’s…

Jyn. It’s Jyn, and suddenly everything is rushing back. Akiva. The mission. Coming so close to making it back, and then running into a group of troopers. From there it’s just fragments of memories. He remembers the brief flare of hope, when he’d taken out their blasters. Remembers himself kneeling, his stomach on fire, remembers thinking “this is going to hurt.” Remembers a boot heading toward his face, fast.

None of the memories are pleasant. He’d much rather focus on Jyn’s voice.

“You should have seen him when he came in,” she’s saying, and her voice sounds strange, constricted. “I didn’t even recognize him.”

“To be fair, he always looks different when he shaves,” Bodhi’s voice says, and she makes a sound that starts as a laugh but ends as more of a sob.

“Hey,” he hears Bodhi say. “It’s going to be OK. Really. Even Kaytoo says his odds of recovery are excellent.”

This time her laugh sounds more genuine. “If Kaytoo says so,” she manages.

“When did you last eat?” Bodhi asks. She’s silent, and even in his half-awake state Cassian knows what that means.

“Jyn,” Bodhi says, stern. “I’m going to go get you lunch, and when I come back, you’re going to eat the whole thing.”

And then he goes out, and it’s just him and her, and he can hear her sniffling. He has to say something, he has to let her know he’s OK.

“Jyn,” he manages. OK, maybe it’s more like “Jmmmph.” Trying to make noise hurts a surprising amount.

“Cassian?” she says, and there’s so much hope in her voice that he has to do more. No matter how much it hurts, he can’t disappoint her, not when she sounds like that.

He has to open his eyes.

It takes a while. His brain doesn’t seem to be fully connected to his body right now (except to feel pain, that side of things is working perfectly). But after what feels like an eternity, he finally succeeds. If the agony and the blinding light are any indication.

“Hey, you,” she says gently, and he hears the tears in her voice, and the relief, and it was worth it.

“Jmph,” he manages again. And then everything fades to black.

 

When he wakes up again, his eyes seem to be working. He can see the sickly green of the medbay ceiling. He can even turn his head enough to see the dim light streaming in a window, and closer, the artificial lights of a machine nearby that seems to be keeping him alive.

And he sees Jyn, curled up asleep in the chair next to his bed. She looks peaceful in sleep and for once he lets himself take her in, lets himself notice the curve of her lips and the way the light hits her skin.

Normally he would make himself look away. It’s not that he doesn’t like watching her; the problem is that he does like it, too much.

It’s enough that she’s on his team, that he can always trust her to have his back. It’s enough that she’s his friend; that she’s closer to him than any person has been in a very, very long time. He’s not going to push her away by asking for more.

It’s enough that she stayed with the rebellion, that she fights with them – with him – when she could have disappeared into the far reaches of the galaxy a hundred times over by now. He knows she carries a heavy burden; a blood guilt that she’s taken on herself despite his every effort. He doesn’t need to put his own complicated feelings on her as well.

But he’ll give himself this one moment.

“Captain Andor,” a familiar voice says. “How are you feeling?”

Draven is standing at the foot of the bed. Cassian didn’t hear him approach, which means he’s probably been standing there the entire time. Watching him stare at Jyn like a fool.

Draven doesn’t look perturbed, but of course, he wouldn’t. The man’s not head of Intelligence for nothing.

“Doing better, sir,” he tells him. His voice is hoarse, but he’s pleased to hear he’s got the use of full words back.

“Good,” Draven gives a small nod. “Maybe now I can finally get my officer back in the field.”

Cassian blinks. “I, ah. It’s probably going to be a few more days until I’m back in the field, sir,” he says.

“Not _you_ ,” Draven says. “You’re not going anywhere for at least another three weeks. I meant officer Erso. I need her with Rook, but she’s been refusing to leave until you wake up.”

He feels his gaze being drawn back to Jyn, and he doesn’t even try to fight it. It’s not a surprise that she’s been fighting with Draven, but – she fought for him. To stay with him.

Maybe he’s not the only one with complicated feelings. The thought is both thrilling and terrifying, and the more he tries to push it away, the more space it seems to hold in his mind.

He feels something warm unfolding in his chest, and he knows he must look like a fool again, but he can’t bring himself to care.

By the time he thinks to look back, Draven is gone.

*

Maybe it’s the thrill of victory that does it.

They hear about the battle over the comm, and they may be stuck out in Orinda, but if the Rebellion took out a Star Destroyer, they’re going to celebrate.

Maybe it’s the music.

The bar they pick is dark and the music is blasting and they can celebrate without worrying about being seen or heard.

Maybe it’s the rum.

… although if she’s being honest, she didn’t have much rum at all. Certainly not enough to explain this.

Whatever it is, she and Cassian are… different, tonight.

She’s at the edge of the makeshift dance floor, swaying slightly to the beat when she feels him behind her. She smiles. When he’d told them to go on ahead and he’d catch up, she’d thought he wasn’t planning to come at all. It would be just like him to spend the night filling out logs and doing maintenance while they celebrated.

Chirrut is off hustling people at darts, with Baze watching over him from the sidelines, and Bodhi is currently all wrapped up in some girl from Naboo he met at the bar. She was just getting bored, and now here he is.

She half-turns, saying his name, but – it’s so loud she’s sure he can’t hear her, and so dark she doubts he can even see her lips move.

He doesn’t say anything, just takes a step closer, until she would be flat against him if she let herself lean back. And maybe it’s the music, or the rum, or the dark, but she finds herself leaning into him, taking his arms and pulling them around her waist. She keeps dancing, her hips grazing his as she sways, and he’s close enough that she feels his sharp exhale, even if she can’t hear it.

She’s surprised him, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead he brings his hands to her hips and starts moving in time, gently bringing her into synch with him.

He can dance. She shouldn’t be surprised. He can fly a spaceship, he can program a droid, he can cook, why not this, too? He dances the way he walks; calm, with an undercurrent of purpose.

It’s just a dance, she tells herself, as one hand leaves her hip and goes skimming up her side, while the other draws her even closer. But she knows it’s a lie. This is – she’s not sure what this is, but it’s setting her nerves on fire like no simple dance ever has. And instead of feeling like it’s too much, she just wants more.

He spins her around in one smooth movement, and now she can feel the lean muscles of his arm moving as they dance, can feel his breath hot against her cheek. They move together easily, naturally, their bodies brushing in time to the music.

And she should stop this, she really should, but instead she finds herself tilting her face toward his, just in time for his lips to come crashing down on hers.

The kiss is hard, almost desperate, and it sends a wave of heat through her. She opens her lips to him without a thought, her hands coming up to his face. She feels his skin, smooth under her fingers as she…

Wait, smooth?

Realization hits her like a blast of cold air. _This isn’t Cassian._

The next second, she’s stepping down on his instep, hard. Who the hell does this guy think he is? She grabs his arm and drags him out the door; he can go dance somewhere else.

And then the streetlight hits his face and it is Cassian. Beardless, and currently bent over in pain, but definitely him.

She leans over him. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she hears herself say.

He takes a minute to catch his breath. “I guess I deserved that,” he says.

“No! No, you… I didn’t know it was you!” she says. She sees his face close off and realizes how that must have sounded. “I mean – I did know it was you, but then I touched your face and it wasn’t you. I thought it wasn’t you. Even though it was.”

He’s giving her a strange look, which – that’s fair. But at least he’s lost that horrible closed-off look he gets. “Can I get that one more time?” he says.

She takes a breath. “Just – you surprised me. When you… I was expecting a beard.”

“You really need to stop getting so surprised every time I shave,” he says, but he looks amused, not angry. And maybe a bit hopeful.

“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” she says, because _it seemed too good to be true, so I thought it wasn’t_ isn’t something she’s ready to say right now.

Maybe he hears some of what she doesn’t say, because his eyes are soft as he takes a step closer. “So, when we were dancing…“ he says.

She can’t bring herself to meet his eyes. Everything was so much easier in the dark. “I thought it was you,” she says softly.

“Good,” he says, and then he’s kissing her again. And it’s not that she’s glad she attacked him, but – it’s even better this way, now that she can see the heat in his eyes as he leans in, hear the soft noise he makes when her hands move under his shirt.

 

It’s only later on the ship, her back against his door and his lips leaving a trail of fire down her neck, that she thinks of how many times she’s tried not to think of this, and realizes tonight might not be so different after all.

 

Jyn has never imagined herself waking up next to Cassian in the morning. That’s the kind of thought she’s been putting effort into not having.

If she had imagined it, though, it would not have been like this. The warmth and the pleasant sore feeling and the way Cassian’s hair sticks up when he lifts his head from the pillow all belong in the best of fantasies, but the massive droid staring at them and declaring, “This is a disaster” kind of ruins the effect.

“Kay,” Cassian says, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Am I to take it that you and Jyn Erso have been engaging in sexual intimacy, captain?” the droid asks, ignoring his question.

“You are to _leave,_ ” Jyn tells him. “Now.”

Kaytoo ignores her, too, because of course he does. “I regret to inform you that romantic ties to Jyn Erso would cause your odds of surviving the next five years to drop by thirty-two percent,” he announces.

Cassian’s eyes move to her, then, and his look sends a flash of heat through her. “Worth it,” he says, and she can’t help but smile back.

“Oh,” is all Kaytoo says.

“Kaytoo,” Cassian says, his tone serious now. “Do not tell the rest of the crew about this.”

“I should not tell them that you and Jyn Erso are engaging in sexual intimacy?” Kaytoo asks, and she could swear he’s being deliberately annoying.

“Yes. Do not tell them,” Cassian says firmly.

“As you wish, Captain,” Kaytoo says. He _finally_ leaves, shutting the door behind him.

Jyn sits up. For a wild moment she almost regrets Kaytoo’s departure; now it’s just her and Cassian, and he’s her best friend and she’s more than a little in love with him and she has _no idea what to say_.

And then he smiles. He’s been doing that more often, lately. She can’t believe she ever thought him emotionless, when he has such a wide array of smiles – the quick smile he flashes at her when she joins them at meals, the wry smile he tries not to let her see when she fights with Draven, the laughing smile she can sometimes coax out of him on their rare days off.

The smile she sees now is warm and soft and does funny things to her stomach. “Hey,” he says, and she smiles back, helpless, as he leans in. His lips touch hers and – oh. She could definitely get used to this. She’s leaning in to deepen the kiss when –

“Chirrut and Baze,” they hear Kaytoo’s voice from the hallway. “I have been instructed to tell you that Captain Andor and Jyn Erso are _not_ engaging in sexual intimacy.”

Baze’s laugh is loud even through the door. Cassian freezes in place, his eyes wide.

Jyn looks at his panicked expression, and suddenly she’s laughing, too, the kind of half-manic giggling fit that she hasn’t had in half a lifetime. She lets her head fall to Cassian’s chest, and she feels his quiet laughter through his shirt as he circles one arm around her.

“I should go out there and explain,” he tells her when she’s calm, an apology in his eyes.

She shakes her head. “I think Kaytoo explained the situation just fine,” she says.

“But we –“

She cuts him off with a kiss. From his enthusiastic response, she gathers that he doesn’t mind the distraction.

And if the rest of the crew have their suspicions confirmed when the two of them only make it out of the room an hour later, oh well. It’s not like they’re wrong.

*

It takes two hours for Layl to finish with Cassian, but the results are more than worth it.

“We are lucky to have you with us,” he tells her as he looks in the mirror, and she blushes in response.

Cassian’s worn his share of disguises before, but this – this is a thing of art. Of course, Layl is an artist. Or was, until her city’s miners went on strike and the Empire responded with a bombing run.

Now she’s an artist of a different sort, turning rebel agents into whoever they need to be with just her sculpting tools and a few bottles of paint.

Right now, she’s made Cassian an elderly Devoranian. He honestly doesn’t recognize himself.

He’s just standing to go when Jyn walks up. “Hey Cassian,” she says casually. “Do you know where our extra bacta bags went to? I want to make sure the medkit is full before we go.”

“You… recognize me?” he asks. Next to him, Layl looks crushed.

“Well, sure,” she says, and then, noticing Layl’s expression, “No! I mean, the disguise is amazing. I just… know Captain Andor very well.”

“What gave him away?” Layl asks shyly. A lot of the younger women on base are shy, talking to Jyn. “Maybe I can improve it.”

“I, um… “ Jyn looks almost embarrassed. “The way he moves, I guess. And – there’s that scar on the back of your neck,” she tells Cassian. “You can still kind of see it.”

“I could cover it,” Layl offers, but he shakes his head.

“No need,” he says, “None of the Stormtroopers will have Lieutenant Erso’s familiarity with my scars.” Layl blushes again, and he realizes too late how that sounded, but – it’s not like it’s not true.

He and Jyn start moving toward the ship. “I think we used the extra bacta bags,” he tells her.

“No, that can’t be,” she says, frowning. “I know we go through them quickly, but we had seven just last month.”

“And then we had that little run-in on Shu-Torun, remember?”

“Right, but that only accounts for four bags.”

“And then there was Bodhi’s accident when he was fixing the thrusters, and Chirrut and Baze’s… incident… on Akiva,” he rattles off. “And your own trouble on Akiva,” he adds, still slightly annoyed about it.

“I was fine,” she says. “That didn’t need a bacta patch.”

He ignores her, because the last thing he wants is to have this fight again right now. “Just – take a couple more from medbay for now,” he says, feeling a small twinge of guilt. “We’ll find a way to pick up replacements during the mission.”

“Are you telling me to steal, Captain?” Jyn asks, her eyes wide with fake surprise.

“I’m asking you to borrow,” he protests, but he can’t help a smile. She laughs at him, her eyes sparkling, and he can’t help reaching out and pulling her closer, and –

“Sorry,” she says, her lips just inches from his. “We can’t ruin your makeup, remember?”

He curses. She smirks, and leans in closer. Her lips brush his ear as she adds, “But just wait until the trip back.”

Cassian’s grinning like an idiot as she walks away. He’s been doing that a lot lately. What can he say, he has a very good feeling about this mission.


End file.
